Get the Most Important EcoNews Right in Your Inbox

Follow EcoWatch

Radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause approximately 130 deaths and 180 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, Stanford researchers have calculated.

The estimates have large uncertainty ranges, but contrast with previous claims that the radioactive release would likely cause no severe health effects.

The numbers are in addition to the roughly 600 deaths caused by the evacuation of the area surrounding the nuclear plant directly after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown.

Recent PhD graduate John Ten Hoeve and Stanford civil engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Woods Institute for the Environment, are set to publish their findings July 17 in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. The research constitutes the first detailed analysis of the event’s global health effects.

No effects?

The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown was the most extensive nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Radiation release critically contaminated a “dead zone” of several hundred square kilometers around the plant, and low levels of radioactive material were found as far as North America and Europe.

But most of the radioactivity was dumped in the Pacific—only 19 percent of the released material was deposited over land—keeping the exposed population relatively small.

“There are groups of people who have said there would be no effects,” said Jacobson.

A month after the disaster, the head of the United Nations Science Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, for example, predicted that there would be no serious public health consequences resulting from the radiation.

Global reach?

Evaluating the claim, Ten Hoeve and Jacobson used a 3-D global atmospheric model, developed over 20 years of research, to predict the transport of radioactive material. A standard health-effects model was used to estimate human exposure to radioactivity.

Because of inherent uncertainties in the emissions and the health-effects model, the researchers found a range of possible death tolls, from 15 to 1,300, with a best estimate of 130. A wide span of cancer morbidities was also predicted, anywhere from 24 to 2,500, with a best estimate of 180.

Those affected according to the model were overwhelmingly in Japan, with extremely small effects noticeable in mainland Asia and North America. The U.S. was predicted to suffer between 0 and 12 deaths and 0 and 30 cancer morbidities, although the methods used were less precise for areas that saw only low radionuclide concentrations.

“These worldwide values are relatively low,” said Ten Hoeve. He explained they should “serve to manage the fear in other countries that the disaster had an extensive global reach.”

The response

The Japanese government’s response was much more rapid and coordinated than that of the Soviets in Chernobyl, which may have mitigated some of the cancer risk.

Japanese government agencies, for example, evacuated a 20-kilometer radius around the plant, distributed iodine tablets to prevent radioiodine uptake and prohibited cultivation of crops above a radiation threshold—steps that Ten Hoeve said “people have applauded.”

But the paper also notes that nearly 600 deaths were reported as a result of the evacuation process itself, mostly due to fatigue and exposure among the elderly and chronically ill. According to the model, the evacuation prevented at most 245 radiation-related deaths—meaning the evacuation process may have cost more lives than it saved.

Still, the researchers cautioned against drawing conclusions about evacuation policy.

“You still have an obligation to evacuate people according to the worst-case scenario,” said Jacobson.

If it happened here

To test the effects of varying weather patterns and geography on the reach of a nuclear incident, the two researchers also analyzed a hypothetical scenario: an identical meltdown at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Despite California’s population density being about one-fourth that of Japan’s, the researchers found the magnitude of the projected health effects to be about 25 percent larger.

The model showed that rather than being whisked toward the ocean, as with Fukushima, a larger percentage of the Diablo Canyon radioactivity deposited over land, including population centers such as San Diego and Los Angeles.

Jacobson stressed, however, that none of the calculations expressed the full scope of a nuclear disaster.

“There’s a lot more to the issue than what we examined, which were the cancer-related health effects,” he said. “Fukushima was just such a large disaster in terms of soil and water contamination, displacement of lives, confidence in government oversight, cost and anguish.”

Comments

These worldwide values are relatively low,” said Ten Hoeve. He explained they should “serve to manage the fear in other countries that the disaster had an extensive global reach.”

Which is precisely why this artical is false. All other ongoing reports I have read online paint a very different picture.

Marushka

The most irresponsible estimation of deaths I’ve heard. Dr. Busby, Science Secretary for ECRR estimated minimum of 200,000 to 400,000 cancer deaths in the 1st 10 years and double that over the next 40 years based on Tondel and ECRR methodologies. He presented his paper in 2011 at the Tschernobyl Kongress in Germany. Cancer is only one cause of death from irradiated exposure, internal being the worst. In 2012 Japan was already reporting an increase in heart attacks — among teenagers and children! Cardiovascular deaths are more frequent post-fallout than cancers. Study Chernobyl… there are thousands of excellent papers and research that have been done. Just because the U.S. suppresses this information does not mean it is not valid. It has been ‘peer-reviewed’ outside this country… and it is sound.

Internal exposure is rather extensive as it is common knowledge that Fukushima food has been distributed across Japan since 311. They take contaminated rice and mix it with less contaminated and call that ‘averaging’. Japan has incinerated it’s radioactive debris across the entire country… thus spreading contaminants for the entire population. Outrageously irresponsible.

Marushka

in the first 200 km range… based on IAEA estimations, which have been found to be woefully underestimations… It is not only not 5 times greater… is being proved to be CONSIDERABLY greater contamination by fallout…. over a much greater area in Japan…. and for the world.

Kyoko Yokoma

There are some false statements in the article.

Very few people in Fukushima took iodine tablets. Some were distributed but the authority never instructed local municipalities that people should go ahead and take them. Only one exception is a small town of Miharu that Mayor did not wait for the direction from the higher government, distributed the tablets and told people to take them before the time of the fallout.

Many many people including children were directed to escape, but to the very wrong direction, following the radioactive plume to the village of Iidate, got exposed, and forced to stay in the location for about a month.

You cannot calculate the health effects because it very much depends on where you were at the time of the fallout and the life style of individuals after the accident. Some are very careful about what to eat, how to go about the everyday life, how much protective measure they take, while others do not mind even picking up and eat wild mushrooms and nuts that often contain high dose of radioactive caesium.

What about the 6,000 people working in the highly radioactive plant location every day to control the situation? Did they count these people? Because they cannot stay in the job for a long time due to radiation exposure, the total number of workforce is increasing every day, and will increase for the next who knows decades.

I stayed in Fukushima this spring with the local people to observe the situation.